Memories of Soldiers and the War
“I have seen thousands and thousands of soldiers. Sometimes it would take a whole day for them to pass through. When Sherman’s army marched through Atlanta, it took more than a day. I was in Atlanta then. He sent word ahead that he was coming through and for all people that weren’t soldiers to get out of the town. I saw the Rebels, too; I saw them when they stacked their arms. Looked like there was a hundred or more rifles in each stack. They just come up and pitched them down. They had to stack their arms and turn them over.
“I was taken to Georgia when I was four years old, you know. I recollect when all the people came up to swear allegiance, and when they were hurrying out to get away from Sherman’s army. They fit in Atlanta and then marched on toward Savannah. Then they crossed over into South Carolina. They went on through Columbia and just tore it up. Then they worked their way on back into Georgia. They didn’t fight in Augusta though.
“Jeff Davis was captured not far from my father’s place[7]. Jeff Davis had a big army, but the biggest thing he had was about a thousand wagons or more piled up with silver and other things belonging to the Confederacy. He was supposed to be taking care of that. He had to turn it over to the North.”
‘Shin Plasters’
“They had a kind of money right after the Civil War—paper money gotten out by the United States Government and supposed to be good. The Confederate money was no good but this money—these ‘shin plasters’ as they were called—was good money issued by the government. They did away with it and called it all in. You could get more for it now than it is worth. The old green back took its place but the ‘shin plaster’ was in all sizes. It wasn’t just a dollar bill. It was in pinnies, five cents, ten cents, twenty-five cents, and then they skipped on up to fifty cents, and they didn’t have nothin’ more till you got to a dollar.”
Schooling
“I haven’t had a great deal of schooling. I have had a little about in places. Just after the emancipation, my mother died and my father married again. My stepmother had other children and they kept me out of my education. Since I have been grown, I have gotten a little training here and there. Still I have served as supervisor of elections and done other things that they wanted educated people to do. But it was just merely a pick-up of my own. The first teachers I had were white women from the North.”
Politics
“I have never taken a great deal of interest in politics. Only in the neighborhood where I lived there was a colony of colored people at Bentley, South Carolina. They chose me to represent them at the polls and I did the best I could. I got great credit for both the colored and the white people for that. But I never took much interest in politics.